CINCINNATI – The Milwaukee Brewers are back in sole possession of first place in the National League Central Division.
Riding on another stellar shooting and home run performance from Christian Yelich, William Contreras and Owen Miller, the Brewers offloaded the Cincinnati Reds for the third straight game – this time by a 3-0 score at Great American Ball Park on Saturday night.
Freddy Peralta started and threw his season-best six innings, then took care of the rest with regular running backs triple Elvis Pejero, Joel Bimps and Devin Williams.
The foursome combined to limit the Reds to a single hit, a broken game especially in the fourth inning.
As a result, the Brewers (51-42) are one game ahead of the Reds (50-43) in the central standings while also winning the season series, key for any potential tiebreaker scenarios in the future.
“We’ve got enough games against them where we want more wins,” said manager Craig Council. “I think over this past year and understanding that the two teams at the end that we’ve been chasing, we lost the season series against (both of them). When you’re in the last week of September, it’s not a good feeling.
“So if that’s one of the teams we’re going to fight with, to know we’ve already accomplished that, it makes your progression an extra game, really.
“It’s a big deal.”
square score: Brewers 3, Reds 0
How good is Milwaukee vs. Cincinnati during this stretch?
The Reds have not scored a run against the Brewers in three straight games—the longest scoreless streak Cincinnati has recorded in more than four years—while also managing just seven hits and striking out 44 times.
Milwaukee has recorded three consecutive shutouts three times in franchise history, the last from July 19–21 against the Miami Marlins at then-Miller Park.
Christian Yelich starts with a bang
After a rain delay of an hour and 16 minutes before the game began, Yelich hit rookie Andrew Abbott’s first throw directly over the wall in left field to give the Brewers a quick 1-0 lead.
It was the eighth homer of Yelich’s career and the fourth of the season.
Abbott recovered by retiring eight of the next nine batters before Contreras followed suit by hitting a leadoff homer to right in the fourth inning to put Milwaukee ahead, 2–0—a shot that prevented the Brewers from winning their third straight game. 1-0 score.
Abbott was pulled after six innings and allowed two singles – in the end a questionable move by manager David Bell, even though Abbott’s pitch count was 90.
Buck Farmer replaced Abbott and two pitches in the seventh inning hit a homer in the second to make it a three-run game.
The Brewers totaled just seven hits, and once again battled to tie anything together.
“We didn’t get the next hit, which would have been nice,” said Conseil.
Freddy Peralta was awesome
Finally, the right-hander was able to avoid a big run.
From the start, Peralta called six shutout innings and the only hit he allowed was from a broken-bat combination to Jake Fraley with one out in the fourth.
And from the near-miss section, it looked as if Peralta had hit Fraley one pitch earlier only to see home umpire Brian Onora look away from the ball.
“I knew it was a strike,” Peralta said, “but I can’t do anything after that. Keep it going.” “I played the next pitch and he connected with the ball and he managed to get on base. I wasn’t thinking about it, but later in the game I was like, ‘This was the first batter. ‘” “
“I was just thinking about the good line-up I was up against and how important this series is to us.”
Cincinnati managed only two other baserunners against him—both by walks—and left after 93 pitches with six strikeouts.
“He made sure he remained aggressive the entire time,” Contreras said through translator Carlos Brizuela. For his part, Peralta credited Contreras with calling a good game.
“Today, we’ve used change a little bit more than we have in the past, and I don’t think they were looking for that,” Contreras continued. “It worked, and he did a good job throwing jabs.”
Peralta’s only other shutout performance came in his first start of the season, when he blowout the New York Mets over six innings at American Family Stadium.
“We did exceptionally well again and Freddie was fantastic tonight,” said Counsell. “No threats, really, just one baseman max (in the inning). His fastball was really good and made everything good. He went down really fast; his change-up was much better tonight, I think. Put him in the bunch zone.”
“They’re really competitive and that slowed them down. When he’s doing that, combining all the pitches is really tough for hitters.”
A great defensive play at third base by Andrew Monasterio retired Eli de la Cruz for the final, hitting his 22nd save of the season for Williams and the 25th batter in franchise history.
The bulls had good lights
First was Wade Miley with six home runs on Sunday. Then it was Corbin Burns with a six on Friday, followed by a six by Peralta on this one.
The bullpen recipe was the same behind them each time with Peguero finishing seventh, Payamps eighth and Williams ninth.
Payamps is up to 18 holds on the team now and Peguero has 13 in 35 appearances.
And in the three wrestlers, the trio combined to not let the enemy base while hitting 17.
“I don’t care who you play for; I’ve knocked out a team three times in a row, that’s great work,” said Counsell. “It was the same story — six innings from our start and three great innings from Elvis, Joel and Devin.
“They did a great job, did a great job and put us in a good position.”
Brian Anderson comes out again
For the second straight game, Brian Anderson was out of the lineup with lower back discomfort and Monasterio replaced him at third base.
“He took it last year on a more serious level,” Consell said, referring to Anderson missing most of last June to a similar issue while with the Miami Marlins. “So, we’re always going to be careful with our lower back. It feels better today. We’ll see how it feels tomorrow.”
Saturday brewers lineup
Christian Yelich d
William Contreras C
Willie Adams S
Owen Miller 1b
Tyrone Taylor RV
Blake Perkins LF
Andrew Monasterio 3b
Price Turang 2b
Joey passes cf
start the ejector: Freddy Peralta
the next
Sunday — Brewers v Reds, 12:40 p.m. Milwaukee RHB Adrian Houser (3-2, 3.68) vs. Cincinnati RHB Ben Lively (4-5, 3.83). TV: Bally Sports Wisconsin. Radio: AM-620.
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